Free The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton Page B

indulgent mother concluded, as though Miss Testvalley’s words had completely reassured her.
    At that moment the door was flung open, and the bride herself whirled into the room. “Oh, Mother!” Conchita paused to greet Miss Testvalley; her manner, like her mother’s, was always considerate and friendly. “You’re not coming to take Nan away already, are you?” Reassured by Miss Testvalley, she put her hands on her hips and spun lightly around in front of the two ladies.
    â€œMother! Isn’t it a marvel?—It’s my Assembly dress,” she explained, laughing, to the governess.
    It was indeed a marvel; the money these American mothers spent on their daughters’ clothes never ceased to astonish Miss Testvalley; but while her appreciative eyes registered every costly detail her mind was busy with the incredible fact that Conchita Closson—“the Closson girl” in Mrs. Parmore’s vocabulary—had contrived to get an invitation to the Assembly, while her own charges, who were so much lovelier and more loveable ... But here they were, Virginia, Nan, and Lizzy Elmsworth, all circling gaily about the future bride, applauding, criticizing, twitching as critically at her ruffles and ribbons as though these were to form a part of their own adornment. Miss Testvalley, looking closely, saw no trace of envy in their radiant faces, though Virginia’s was perhaps a trifle sad. “So they’ve not been invited to the ball, and Conchita has,” she reflected, and felt a sudden irritation against Miss Closson.
    But the irritation did not last. This was Mrs. Parmore’s doing, the governess was sure; to secure Lord Richard, she had no doubt persuaded the patronesses of the Assembly—that stern tribunal—to include his fiancée among their guests. Only—how had she, or the others, managed to accept the idea of introducing the fiancée’s mother into their hallowed circle? The riddle was answered by Mrs. Closson herself. “First I was afraid I’d have to take Conchita—just imagine it! Get up out of my warm bed in the middle of the night, and rig myself up in satin and whalebones, and feathers on my head—they say I’d have had to wear feathers!” Mrs. Closson laughed luxuriously over this plumed and armoured vision. “But luckily they didn’t even invite me. They invited my son instead—it seems in New York a girl can go to a ball with her brother, even to an Assembly ball... and Conchita was so crazy to accept that Mr. Closson said we’d better let her....”
    Conchita spun around again, her flexible arms floating like a dancer’s on her outspread flounces. “Oh, girls, it’s a perfect shame you’re not coming too! They ought to have invited all my bridesmaids, oughtn’t they, Miss Testvalley?” She spoke with evident good will, and the governess reflected how different Miss Parmore’s view would have been, had she been invited to an exclusive entertainment from which her best friends were omitted. But, then, no New York entertainment excluded Miss Parmore’s friends.
    Miss Testvalley, as she descended the stairs, turned the problem over in her mind. She had never liked her girls (as she already called them) as much as she did at that moment. Nan, of course, was a child, and could comfort herself with the thought that her time for ball-going had not yet come; but Virginia—well, Virginia, whom Miss Testvalley had not altogether learned to like, was behaving as generously as her sister. Her quick hands had displaced the rose-garland on Conchita’s shoulder, re-arranging it in a more becoming way. Conchita was careless about her toilet, and had there been any malice in Virginia she might have spoilt her friend’s dress instead of improving it. No act of generosity appealed in vain to Miss Testvalley, and as she went down the stairs to the hotel entrance she